


33: Sweet Dreams

by TheLastFounder



Series: Master of Nothing [5]
Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Movies 1984-1994), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, FREDDY'S BACK, Game of Thrones References, Harry Potter is Nancy Thompson, Immortal Harry Potter, Intended to Have Loose Ends, Master of Death Harry Potter, Personification of Death, Psychological Horror, Rare Pairings, Reincarnated Harry Potter, Reincarnation, Rod is a douche, Sorry Glen, Tina Needs Respect, part of a series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-07-29 05:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20077246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastFounder/pseuds/TheLastFounder
Summary: After living a life of frost and war, Harry is reborn as a girl in a peaceful time. The 1980's, a time of entertainment and light... but sometimes it's hard to see the light when all isn't as it seems. The nights begin to blur, and even our favorite immortal and friends find themselves getting some sleep... Welcome to your nightmare, "Master of Death"





	1. Songbird

**Life 33: Sweet Dreams**

* * *

**(Springfield, Massachusetts, 1981)**

* * *

**"Hey, we're almost there."**

That was the first thing I heard as I woke up, finding my eyes struggling to open as I felt warmth I hadn't in ages.

After traveling through winter for so long, I immediately recognized the feel of the sun on my face, and I couldn't help myself but smile.

"Nancy, is something wrong?" That same voice asked of me, a soft hand pressing itself to my side as I finally opened my eyes.

A fresh-faced boy looked at me in concern, his hair drooping forward as he obviously looked me over for whatever was wrong.

He couldn't have been more than seventeen or so, and incredibly boring if his iron-pressed khakis were any indicator.

_"Wait a minute… Nancy?"_

Thinking on it, I wracked my brain to try and sort myself out.

Alright then, checklist.

I'm young, reasonably so by the lack of wrinkles on my hands and the fact I'm near blinded by my hair. Brown as well, been a while since I was a brunette.

Female, definitely. If the name Nancy wasn't obvious, my chest gave that away.

Last time I was female… June wasn't a life I liked thinking about too often… I wasn't in a good place when I was June, but it led me here all the same.

Now then, enough of dark pasts and onto new memories…

Nancy Jean Thompson, seventeen, I live in Springwood.

Small town girl, I can work with that.

Once again I'm a teenager… Puberty seems to be my true curse, I swear.

I go to high-school, how exciting... Not like I could be on an adventure or something...

I'm on Earth, modern times which is a relief. If the fact that I'm in a car didn't give that away, Khakis over there is a dead ringer.

Oh crap, he's my boyfriend… I have a boyfriend.

Yeah, might have to do something about that, I'll have to make up some excuse.

I might have been living as all sorts of people, from all sorts of crazy scenarios, but I'm a man in my soul. Also still British in there too, if that even matters anymore.

I didn't really need a boyfriend.

Now then, at risk of making a time travel clique, when am I?

September fourteenth, nineteen-eight-one…

Wait…

My parents died a little over a month from now, at least, my original ones had. Is this even the same world?

"Nancy, you're kind of creeping us out here." Another voice said to me, drawing me out of the pit my mind had fallen into. Turning my gaze to the right, I saw a young blonde staring back at me, her brown eyes looking into mine.

This was Tiny Gray, according to Nancy's memories. My new best friend, who had a jackass of a boyfriend. Can't exactly leave a friend to someone like that, since Nancy provided me with all that I needed to know.

But at least I can function well enough.

"I'm just tired Tina, I didn't sleep well last night." I lied through my teeth, only feeling slightly bad about it. Thirty-three in, and I could lie like a pro… McGonagall would have my head on a plate.

"I didn't either, I had this horrible nightmare. Worst I've ever had. You wouldn't believe it Nancy." Tina said to me with something I recognized as fear, as if her nightmare had actually happened.

Thinking on it, I joined Tina, and… Ah, Glen, that's his name, as we got out of Glen's Cadillac, seems we did this often.

Letting myself slip a bit, I let Nancy's instincts fuel me as I followed the two teens towards the school, seems it's a Monday too…

What luck I've had so far in this life.

I'm stuck with a shirt-tucked boyfriend and it's Monday.

Death must have some sense of humor, to put me in the suburbs after fighting off frost and monsters alike…

I was a king, and now I'm a girl wearing her boyfriend's Letterman…

_"God, could it get any worse?"_

Shrugging off Glen's attempts to carry my books for me, I turned to Tina and tried to make conversation. I hadn't really talked to anyone in a very long time, at least over thirty years. You know, counting the last life that is, and I usually do.

"Matter of fact, I had a bad dream last night too, there was this dragon-" I tried to say to her, losing myself in my few good memories, only to feel a man press himself up behind Tina and I. I could literally smell the liquor on this man from a mile away, and the fact he was underage had me itching to call the cops.

"I had a hard on this morning when I woke up, Tina. Had your name written all over it." The obnoxious idiot said as he pressed himself even closer to us, his rancid breath assaulting my neck.

This oaf is Rod Lane, according to Nancy. Tina's on again, more often off again, boyfriend. Apparently he drank himself stupid every weekend, and barely found time for Tina, and when he did it was only for her body.

Rod is an asshole, and even Nancy agreed with me.

Tina seemed to agree as well.

"There's four letters in my name, Rod. How could there be room on your joint for four letters?" Tina asked of him, and the burn was felt the world over.

Tina knew just the way to rip down a man, and I admired the hell out of her. I even laughed. I hadn't done that in ages either.

Rod wasn't laughing, stopping in his tracks.

"Hey, up yours with a twirling lawnmower!" Rod yelled out with some strange gesture of his arms. Man… the eighties were weird.

"Fuck off Rod." I said with a glare, and it was probably the most unexpected thing I could have said. Did people not curse in this decade or something?

All three of them stared at me like I had gone insane, and with that Rod jarringly left our company.

Good riddance I'd say, and hopefully he stays away.

"Nancy, you know Rod's just joking right?" Tina asked of me in confusion, which according to Nancy's memories was correct, but I didn't like the guy at all.

I make it clear when I don't like someone.

"The guy says he likes you Tina, but he shouldn't treat you like that. No one should." I said to her with all the confidence I could gather together, and Tina seemed to take that to mind with a tiny smile.

Step one of my life in the Eighties.

Kill the Eighties.

"You're right Nancy." Tina said to me with something akin to pride in her eyes, a feeling that Tina likely hadn't felt too often. "But about that nightmare Tina." Glen tried to say to her, obviously trying to reinsert himself back into our conversation, probably to give some sage advice or something he thought it would be.

"It was just a dream Tina, and hey, next time you have a nightmare, just come and find me." I said to her with a smile, quickly cutting off my oh so precious boyfriend.

Shaking off his embrace as politely as I could, I exchanged his hand for Tina's as I raced off with the school bell ringing away.

I purposely tried not to look at the hurt on Glen's face, but I promised myself to at least be his friend.

Nancy wouldn't have dated him if he wasn't a good guy, so I did at least say goodbye to him.

"Maybe we're gonna have a big earthquake. They say things get weird just before that…" Tina said to me with a bare hope, obviously trying to explain her dreams away with some greater meaning.

I've had dreams before, and rarely are they more than that, except when there's someone screwing with them. I've seen way too many witches that got their kicks that way.

Speaking of witches,** hello Nancy Thompson.**

* * *

**The school day passed way too slowly.**

Most of the material we covered was stuff I had learned in previous lives, but it was good to have a refresher.

However, I spent most of the time cataloging Nancy's memories and rebuilding my state of mind. I had started hours before the usual assimilation, but only as the day began to end did Nancy truly blend into who I really was.

Harry Potter, or the being that once was him, pseudo-immortal entity living out yet another life.

This was the thirty-third, and still no answer of how many I'd be stuck with. I was figuring probably one-hundred. I'm unlucky like that.

However, I made do and focused on the interesting in this boring excuse for a town.

Seriously, not a single movie theater. Just… how?

Tina Gray was interesting though, at least for a schoolgirl.

I've had bad dreams before, and this one just wouldn't leave Tina no matter how much I tried to reassure her.

Making my mind up, I promised to sleep over at her house to help her sleep.

A proper slumber party, just the girls.

Except for the fact that one of the two girls in it was actually a two thousand year old entity that used to be a boy wizard from Britain.

Yeah, my life got pretty twisted after picking up that damn wand.

However, sitting by a fire on a starry night with a cute blonde, not a bad night.

After having eaten entirely too much pizza, I let Tina coerce me into a night of partying, at least what the Eighties considered it.

Basically the two of us dancing like fools listening to Michael Jackson.

Who was alive.

At risk of falling even deeper into clique… Man this is heavy.

At some point Tina had convinced me that we just HAD to paint our nails, and… you know what, red and gold have always been my colors.

After all that, and way too much cuteness on Tina's part, finally we sat together before the fire as I felt happier than I had in some time.

Yeah, I was forced to be a girly girl for hours, but it beats near freezing as I stand on a freaking wall for an entire day, almost every day.

I'll take sitting by a fire with awesome nails over frostbite any day.

I smiled at Tina, but she just stared on.

"See? I told you that I'd make you forget that dream." I said to her, trying to coax a smile onto her face. She did have a great smile, at least from what Nancy's memories told me.

"Nancy, All day long I've been seeing that guy's weird face, and hearing those fingernails…" She said quietly, her eyes finally meeting mine, but all I saw was fear.

True, unadulterated fear.

**"Tina, tell me about your dream again."**

* * *

**There was something outside.**

I had listened to Tina stumble over her dream, her nightmare of that man over and over again.

She told me about a steam filled boiler room, of shredded canvases and a burned man.

A man wearing a freaking striped sweater and wearing a glove affixed with knives, knives that sliced her chest in a single strike.

Honestly, I'd say she saw it in a movie if there wasn't a single theater in Springfield.

Despite my best attempts to calm her down, insisting that such a ridiculous sounding man couldn't be real, she wouldn't settle.

Then, of course, we heard a scratching from outside.

Not like a cat, but like the scratching Tina described in her dream.

Now, I know for a fact a burned man with knife fingers isn't outside scratching her damn house, so I gave Tina a warm gaze.

"Tina, I swear it's nothing, but I'll go look, okay?" I said to her softly, almost like I was talking to a child, but she held the fear of one.

I would have assumed she had PTSD with her level of fear, but she just nodded and wished me luck timidly.

I'm not going to walk outside and die or anything.

Right?

Shaking off my nerves, I walked from Tina's living room towards the backdoor and quickly unlatched it to step outside into the dark. Dog barks met my ears as only the night sky loomed over me, not a soul in sight.

Except, in that little bit of my mind that kept me alive, I knew I wasn't alone out here, and I didn't mean Tina watching from the door as I stepped out. I wanted Tina to feel safe, of course, but I knew we weren't alone.

Feeling prepared to cast a stunner under my breath if need be, I stepped farther from the porch and into the gloom.

Why do I get the feeling I'm about to-

And then, of course, that fuckhead Rod jumps out of the dark to scare us.

"God damn it Rod!" I yelled in frustration, calming my heart-rate as I fought back the urge to Reducto the man into bits of flesh. I had learned self control, somewhere along the line. Tina wasn't having any of his crap though.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asked him pointedly, all but slapping the man after pulling this stunt. Honestly, I was all too willing to slap him for her.

"Came to make up, no big deal. Your ma home?" Rod asked her, swaying his way over to Tina as he got way too close for my liking. The fact Rod treated her so awfully, then tried to make himself at home…

"Of course, and what's that?" Tina said timidly, obviously wanting to not be alone with him, but just curious as I was at the weird instrument he carried.

Rod lifted it to the light then, and proceeded to scratch it along the house walls. It was some weird little hand rake, but it made the exact scratching noises we heard earlier.

No burned man, just an asshole.

"Intense, huh?" Rod said with a smirk as he held the rake like it was the coolest thing ever. I had in fact actually seen the coolest thing ever before, and a rake wasn't it. He looked at us then, but I swear I could carve those lustful eyes out of his head. "So what's happening, an orgy or something?"

I growled, immature as it might have been.

"Just playing some party games, like bury the drunk asshole." I growled out to him, all but ready to stun his ass and leave him out on the lawn, his leather jacket ripped to shreds with that freaking rake.

Apparently you should never underestimate a drunk man, duly noted.

Bastard pulled a switch blade on me, how funny.

I proceeded to grab it, flick it back into place, then pocket it away for later.

He looked upset at that, but hey, he shouldn't have showed it to me if he wanted to keep it.

"What we're doing is our business Rod, now why don't you fuck off before I call the cops for drunk and disorderly?" I threatened him, all but ready to lay him out, before he let out a huff of air.

"Damn Nancy… you got more fire in you than I thought." He said in what was probably meant to be respect, as he spared a glance at Tina and then turned back to me, now suddenly angry.

Oh yeah, forgot the drunk thing.

"Whatever, I'll got things to do anyway." He slurred out, giving me a dirty look before walking off into the dark like the creep he was.

I didn't care where he went, just that he stayed far away from Tina, and by extension me.

"Nice knife though, could come in handy." I said with a little smirk as Tina led me back inside. She merely rolled her eyes as we headed upstairs, but that same worried look came back to her.

"Nancy… could we share a bed, please?"

Any other case when a woman asked me to sleep with her, I would have been overjoyed, but now I only felt concern.

What kind of nightmare scares a person this much?

**"Sure Tina."**

* * *

**I woke suddenly,** not sure exactly what was going on.

I had fallen asleep with Tina beside me, yet now she was shaking horribly on the bed, like she was in a fit.

"Tina, wake up." I said to her, trying to free her from whatever dream she'd fallen into, but she didn't so much as flinch.

"Tina…" I tried again, shaking her slightly but to no avail. Grimacing, I tried a spell I barely remembered. I had used it in… the hospital during the Blitz, didn't I? Regardless, it should work.

The awakening spell.

"Excito Autem." I cast under my breath, laying a hand on her forehead as a channel. For some odd reason though, my magic seemed to… wash over her, rather than into her. Something was stopping me from waking her...

"What the…? EXCITO AUTEM!" I called out, trying once again to force her awake. Despite my attempts, Tina kept shaking away, locked inside whatever hell she'd conjured up.

Taking a breath, and ignoring the glow my hands had taken on, I tried one last time in desperation.

I refused to give up, just as I always have.

"EXCITO AUTEM MAXIMA!"

With a stunning light that seemingly burned away the cold in the room, Tina fell still on the bed and I let out the breath I'd been holding without knowing it.

Despite my relief, Tina lay perfectly still, almost like a doll. I didn't hear her let out so much as a breath, until she sat up and stared at me with annoyed eyes.

**"Nancy, can't you see I'm trying to sleep…?"**

* * *

**Nothing.**

Tina remembered nothing of whatever nightmare had taken her in, and I was confused as all hell.

That nightmare… it was the most intense dream I've ever seen, and yet she didn't even remember a second of it.

I knew for a fact it wasn't normal, considering it took so much magical effort just to wake her up, and yet… she said she slept fine.

"Are you sure you're alright Tina?" I asked her for what had to be the hundredth time, as I ran over almost every possible explanation I could think of.

I had no idea if there were even other Witches or Wizards in this life, so that crossed out most of the possibilities, and yet… something was wrong.

"Nancy, I told you. I'm fine." She said to me with an exhausted smile, but there was a look in her eye. A look that I knew. "Maybe we should sleep together more often."

No matter how much I liked that look, even drawing a smile from me, I felt only dread sinking into my spine. With her arms around me, I stared out the window into the night.

Something… was wrong here.

There was something going on in Springfield.

I promised myself then and there, that nothing was going to hurt Tina, let alone anyone else.

**Not even a nightmare.**


	2. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regrets and Butterfly Effects

**Life 33: Sweet Dreams**

* * *

**"I… am not your enemy…"** The old man began to beg as I held his throat in my grasp, his breath faltering beneath my hold.

Dumbledore had taken years to find, the war with Grindelwald only forcing the man into hiding and ensuring my crusade carried on for even longer ages.

"My enemies are endless Albus, and I see no name. You wronged me, so I feel no guilt in this." I muttered with a chuckle one could only call malicious, my fingers tightening around my stolen wand.

The Elder Wand had never wanted to obey me, even when I had rightfully earned it. Now, stolen as it was, it refused me even more. Death's Avatar I may be, but it would not obey.

"I… wish you peace… June." Albus said with a sad smile, his eyes closing in exhaustion as I felt his life drain with each tightening of my fingers on his throat.

"**You'll beg me for it…"**

* * *

**(Tuesday, September 14th, 1981)**

* * *

**"Oh fuck..."** I muttered out as I opened my eyes to the harsh sunlight that awaited me, my weariness from the night before betraying me.

I had been sitting in the most boring history course since Binn's, without anyone I knew nearby, when I had fallen into yet another dark memory…

Out of all of the lives I regretted, of course I fell into June… and one of my greatest mistakes…

I had repressed so much of my sixth life… my shame and guilt hidden so very carefully, and yet here I lingered in my shame.

The blood of my mentor staining my hands for eternity, for a mistake a different version of the man had made.

Too much blood rested on my hands, and it was all I could think about as I sat surrounded by innocents all around me, all so concerned about grades and their futures.

Also their sexual partners, that was another concern of theirs, couldn't forget about that.

Maybe my memories were triggered by Tina's fears, my desire to cure her nightmares dragging up ones of my own.

My hero complex had made me pay more times than I honestly deserved, but it was all I could do to make up for the mistakes of my past.

How ironic, that I no longer suffered the sins of my father, but the sins of myself.

I have issues, I've never denied that.

* * *

"Glen, hey!" I called out to the young man that cares so very much for me, however much I wish he hadn't.

This wasn't the first time I had faced… suitors, while living as the fairer sex, but it was the first time I didn't outright hate them.

Glen was a kind soul, one loving, loyal, and protective.

He reminded me of my original self, if a bit more boring.

So, despite the fact that I was going to have to break up with him, Nancy would remain his friend.

He deserved as much.

"Hey there Nancy, I was just going to get lunch. Would you like something?" Glen asked me softly as he turned from the door, the cafeteria staring us down as we stood together in the school's empty halls.

I let a little smile loose as he reminded me of a friend I once had, but my memories couldn't bring him to mind.

A friend I hadn't appreciated as much he deserved… However, Glen was my focus here.

"Not really Glen, just letting you know I'm thinking of you." I said to him with a smile and a pat on the shoulder, watching him smile and then lose it as confusion filled his gaze.

Obviously he didn't understand.

"Nancy… did I do something wrong? You've been… ignoring me, or at least it feels that way." Glen said with a hesitant frown, almost as if he was afraid to express his concerns to me.

I just frowned in return, this was never easy to tell them, and it hurt my soul every time.

"No Glen, you've done nothing wrong. I'm just… changing." I said with as much subtlety as I could, trying not to hurt his feelings too much.

I was never much of a talker, evident by the way his face literally froze and dropped.

A little bit of my heart broke at the broken look on Glen's face, as if I had stolen away all he cared for.

Thinking about it, he probably loved Nancy more than I had thought, and not for the first time, I felt awful for the nature of my curse.

How different would things be if I hadn't become Nancy? Would she and Glen have lived happily together?

Would there have been marriage bells in their future? Would Glen have stopped wearing khakis?

Sadly, I'd never know, and neither would Glen.

"Nancy… I can't begin to understand you, but if you need to change, I won't stop you." Glen said with a grimace, as if the words hurt him with each syllable.

I had never expected I'd break a man so simply, and it showed on my own face.

"Thank you Glen." I said to him as I took a chance, giving the poor man a hug as I tried to bring some light back into him.

My efforts seemed to work somewhat, since Glen had a small smile beginning to grow.

**"Always Nancy."**

* * *

**"Nancy, I need to talk with you…"** Tina said with a whimper as she pulled me aside, the two of us stepping into a corner of the school's parking lot.

After hours of boredom with brief interludes where I met with Glen and Tina, the day had finally come to an end when Tina met me with a worried gaze.

I merely nodded as she pulled me closer, her eyes flickering around in what looked like paranoia.

Did she think someone was watching us?

"Nancy… have you seen Rod today?" She asked me with a wayward hope, almost as if she hoped I had seen the asshole.

I wouldn't beat around the bush with her, as I hadn't seen sight or sound of the man after he had threatened me via knife.

"Not since we saw him last night Tina," I said with a shake of my head, before seeing the widening of her eyes. I placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Tina, what's wrong honey?"

I hadn't even noticed what I had said until she shifted her gaze to the leaving students, the cars driving off so casually as I felt that same sense of dread shift into me.

Whereas I had felt a chill before, I felt a blistering heat now. What was going on?

"I… No one has seen Rod at all today, and his father said he didn't go home last night." Tina said in something close to a whisper, as I could see the fear in her eyes.

While Rod might have been a right bastard, and downright awful to Tina, she obviously didn't wish harm on the guy.

Honestly, I didn't either.

He might not be a good person, but I didn't want him dead.

"Maybe he's just off drinking Tina, I'm sure he's fine." I said with a steady smile, trying to give the girl some form of comfort. She needed a pillar to stand against, and I had to be it.

Otherwise, I have no idea where Tina would be.

"Maybe you're right Nancy, but I've got a bad feeling." Tina said a bit louder than she had before, finally meeting my eyes for longer than a few seconds, but I saw the doubt in her.

Now, not even I believed my words.

For some reason, I felt that I would never seen Rod again.

Oh how right I would be, as I saw two uniformed men walk right up to me, and call out my new name.

"Nancy Thompson, you are under arrest for the murder of Rod Lane." They called out, their hands moving to clamp their cuffs around my wrists.

I was too stunned to resist, but nor would I.

Tina tried to stop them, but I merely watched as they read me my rights. Deciding that it'd be better not to fight them, I merely gave a weary smile to Tina as I took a breath.

**"Lead the way fellas."**

* * *

**(Twelve Hours Earlier)**

* * *

**Rod Lane was a troubled man.**

Not even of age yet, Rod had suffered more than most, and had tried his very hardest to move on from it.

A lost mother, an angry father, and a sister that hated every single thing about him.

Rod was a man that had very little of his own, and had been overjoyed when someone finally saw him.

Having grown up in Springfield, he had met HER years before, Tina Gray, a girl so very kind that she had seen something in the angry ruffian that lived next door.

That thought Rod was someone worth being around, but she had been wrong all along.

Rod wasn't, having learned for years that all he did was bring suffering to those he cared about, so he tried to forget.

He drank, he smoked, he slept the days away.

Rod's life spiraled away as he tried to forget the reality that no one cared, until Tina said she loved him.

That day had been the greatest of Rod's life, as he finally saw that he wasn't a blight on everyone around him.

That someone actually cared.

Of course, Rod hadn't been the best boyfriend, nor even a good friend.

A person so neglected and shamed doesn't become a starling socialite just because he found someone that cared.

His life had turned around because of Tina, even finding people that passed for friends, those that cared for Tina.

But he knew the truth, both Nancy and Glen hated him, only tolerating his presence because she loved him.

He loved her as well, but he couldn't control himself.

He yelled, he growled, he drank his nights away.

Rod didn't show her the care she deserved, the love he should have showered her with, and he kept paying for it time and time again.

Now, after years of it, Tina had finally dropped him. Her friends had gotten tired of him, and stopped letting his behavior stand.

He had seen Glen's hate for him for a while, believing that the younger man was no threat to him, but Nancy… that girl had never liked him, but she knew that he wasn't evil.

She knew he cared for Tina, that he was flawed, but apparently he had crossed the line.

Rod didn't argue with her, he knew he had gone too far, had shown that he didn't deserve Tina.

As he drank in the woods past the neighborhood, not far from Old Springfield, his eyes began to droop.

Rod knew that he wasn't a good man, but he made a promise to himself, to Tina, to God.

Tomorrow, he'd be a better man.

He would be the man Tina deserved.

**Until he fell asleep.**

* * *

**(Springfield Police Department, Present Time)**

* * *

**Donald Thompson wasn't a good father.**

He would even agree, after barely seeing his daughter after the divorce. Marge had made it clear he was not wanted, but he'd kept an eye on the only person that he had left, and he was enraged when she was arrested by his own officers.

Now, his own daughter sat across from him in the interrogation room, her eyes avoiding his.

He had heard from the arresting officers that Nancy had been nothing but rude, but he had heard Nancy hadn't had the best week so far. Having been a teenager himself, he was far too familiar with how the world hurt.

"I don't believe you killed him Nancy, but it looks damning baby girl…" Donald muttered to his daughter, pushing the water bottle closer to her as he tried to get her to at least talk to her.

He knew she was pissed at him, but he hadn't been the one to arrest her, nor the one to sign her arrest warrant either.

However, he knew what had been found.

Rod Lane, a young man with many enemies, found stabbed to death in the woods near Old Springfield.

The boy's own switchblade lodged straight through his eye, Nancy's fingerprints all over the hilt of the knife.

As well, witnesses stating that Nancy had threatened the boy at school, and even Donald knew that Rod wasn't the smartest boy.

However, despite all the evidence stacked against his daughter, he could not believe it.

He would not.

Donald looked at his daughter and didn't see a murderer, only the little girl that refused to let little Glen get bullied in Elementary school, refused to let Glen fight with the bullies that bothered him.

Nancy could not have killed the boy, and Donald would have called her friends to validate his belief… but he knew it'd be pointless.

With how close Tina and Glen were to her, they'd probably help her cover up the murder, at least that was what the Chief claimed.

Not for the first time, Donald wanted to rip Simmons apart, limb from limb.

Ignoring that though, Donald knew that they didn't need two Thompson's wanted for murder.

"It doesn't really matter if you believe me, does it dad?" Nancy said with a cynical tone that Donald didn't really recognize from his daughter, but he understood it.

After having to deal with her grieving friend on the phone, and being accused for murder, Nancy probably wasn't feeling too friendly.

There was also the fact that Nancy didn't care too much for him to begin with, explaining why he didn't have custody…

"That is too true…" Donald said with a pained grimace, as he pulled a few papers from the stack on the table, a pencil coming next. Nancy was given them all. "But they don't believe you. I want to prove them wrong, and if you know anything about Rod, about what could have actually happened, I will listen."

Nancy merely took the papers and managed a weak smile.

"Dad, I don't even know what happened."

And that was all they got out of Nancy.

Despite the sneers of his fellow officers, Donald only maintained his focus.

There was a murderer in Springfield, **and he would find them.**

* * *

**I didn't know where I was.**

I had been sitting in a jail cell one moment, having still been caught in the shock that I had somehow been framed for murder, and now sat in an office that…

"Hello there my boy, I believe we have much to discuss." A voice all too familiar to me said, as I heard a slight huff of air.

Suddenly I was seated before a magnificent desk, and face to face with a man I would always know.

"You're dead." I said with no emotion, like I was stating a true fact, which it was.

Every time I saw this man's face, he had always died, and it had always been my fault.

"I believe we've had this discussion before my boy. Death is nothing close to what we perceive it to be." Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore himself said to me with a chuckle, as I merely marveled at him in the flesh.

I had lost him to fate once, and to my rage another time, and yet… here he was, as real as he had ever been.

"Albus… I know Death, how are you even here?" I asked of him in desperation, only to realize that I no longer carried the soft tones of Nancy, only hearing the biting accent of Harry once more.

A voice I never thought I'd hear again.

"How…?"

"Quite simple Harry, we're beyond the veil, as it were." He said to me as if discussing the weather, not transcending life and death. I merely gawked at him, before hearing a scratching sound.

Where did I know of a sound like that, repeating and draining?

Piercing and harsh to the ears, yet Albus seemed unfazed.

"Albus… why am I here…?" I asked of the man I once admired, and then killed, as I felt a burning heat sinking into my chest.

I needed to know, as I felt a flame in my heart, only to be shocked to my core when a smile so insidious grew on the wise man's face.

With not so much of an explanation, Albus smiled that horrible grin, and lifted his hands to his face.

The fingers spindly and thin, so very fragile as they once were, but his odd arm… Burned and rotten as it once was, the curse upon it still there as he lifted his hands to rest under his jaw.

His eyes once such a calming blue, now turning to a cold white.

"As I said Harry… we have much to discuss, but let's begin with your parasitic travels." Albus said so coldly, a hollowness to his voice that I had never known and never feared, but now I felt the force of it all.

To my further shock however, when I tried to defend myself, plead that I had never wanted all of this.

That I dreamed of a final death, I was left silent and ashamed.

"How many souls have you devoured as you took their place Harry…? How many lives have you ruined because you felt you could write a better script than fate itself?" Albus asked of me, his lifeless eyes beginning to burn in their sockets with unearthly flames.

To my horror, the flesh curling and flaking as the pupils became nothing but bloody coal in the ruined flesh of his temple.

Through this horror, I could only feel that same fire flow through my body, building a pressure beneath my skin that I could feel with every second passing.

I felt like a bomb, waiting for the spark to ignite my cursed soul.

"How many names and faces have you stolen Harry?" Albus asked of me, so hatefully and painfully of him as he rose from the melting throne he had once reigned upon.

Hogwarts had once been a haven for the innocent, yet I could only watch as the walls around me began to blur to nothingness.

"How many lives have you stole?" He demanded, his voice raising and going to a horrible gruff, as I could only see him stalk closer to me.

His skin began to flake and burn, his eye sockets long since turned into an empty mass of darkness, his vibrant robes burning and twisting to incinerated scraps of cloth, marred with blackened flesh.

I could only watch as his dead arm came closer to me, the ruined fingertips growing long and sharp, the filthy nails becoming like blades as they came to rest against my scalp. I winced as they began to tease my skin, their points drawing blood as I felt the intense pain begin.

Albus laughed at me then, his jaw exposed to the air as the flames licked over his face, the skull greeting my gaze eagerly.

I could only watch him, my body not my own as he leered even closer to me.

"Oh Harry… I have seen so many interesting things in that pretty brain of yours… and you, you are definitely my favorite." Albus, or whatever unholy being that acted as him muttered under his breath, the voice unlike my mentor's, now a cold gruff with a sadistic tinge.

Unbidden to me, a slideshow of my worst memories began to play right before my eyes.

Hermione's death, the crowning of the Cruel King, the Winter Invasion, Jack, the Massacre… and the Darkness…

All so very horrible, and all my fault…

Despite how much I wished otherwise, this beast was right.

It had been my fault.

"Now now buddy, you've been a pretty good boy, aside from that glaring flaw of yours…" The beast said with a chuckle, those horrible eyes turning to me, now with a piercing red light in the center of the darkness.

I could only watch that demon come closer to me, and listen to its words.

"No one likes a liar sport, and you've told more than I ever could." The monster said with a laugh, as I felt an unholy, but familiar, pain course through me.

I could only stare at the monstrosity, hoping for some reason for this all, only to be left wanting as the beast moved back from my tortured form.

"I'm afraid we've run out of time Harrikins… but there's always a next time." The creature said with a chuckle, it's burnt rags shifting and changing then from the burnt robes to something oddly mundane.

A sweater clothed this monster now, so very simple yet horrible with the flecks of flesh sewn into the fabric itself.

**"Remember my words kiddo…"**

* * *

**"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!"** Donald yelled with pure rage as he looked ready to punch the medic that had arrived at the jailhouse, the only one that had time to address him after the rest had swarmed down to the cellblock.

Donald was dumbstruck and scared as hell, and the damn medic didn't help his nerves at all.

"We're still not sure, but it appears your daughter… marked herself. The scarring is minimal, but the blood loss… I've never seen such blood loss from shallow cuts before." The medic said with something approaching awe and fear at the very same time, as Donald looked downright murderous.

His daughter, his Nancy, mutilating herself?

Impossible, she would never do such a thing. He had known his daughter since birth, watched from a distance as she made friends and embraced her life so beautifully and happily.

Yet, Nancy had been alone in a locked cell, and then been bleeding out before midnight.

A shard of broken glass in her left hand, blood soaking her right.

They had bandaged and treated her wound as best they could, but Donald now looked at the wound via photograph, trying to make some sense of why his daughter would possibly scar herself with such a message… but he felt the pressure closing in… The reality of it all too painful.

His daughter would never do this, he was sure of it as he took one last look at the photo, and his daughter's bloody hand.

Five jagged words carved into his daughter's very flesh.

**I Must Not Tell Lies.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The initial nightmare is of course Life #6, which I'll likely never write.   
I will say this though.  
Dark Lord June, during the events of Fantastic Beasts.


	3. Husk

**Life 33: Sweet Dreams**

* * *

**"You believe me, don't you?"** Tina asked of Glen, the two of them sitting together in study hall, the school so very quiet and lonesome without Nancy to fill the void.

Tina had been devastated, and still was to an extent, and Glen could only try to carry on for the both of them while their friend was good as locked away.

Tina had lost a man she had once loved, and now her best friend had been arrested for his murder.

Glen didn't know what had killed Rod, or who, but he knew that Nancy was innocent, both of them agreed to that.

"Of course I do… but this has been so weird Tina… Everything's pointing to Nancy." Glen said in a sad mutter, trying to find some article of evidence that could prove Nancy innocent.

Tina had already said that they'd been together, so Nancy couldn't have killed Rod, but the police hadn't believed her.

_"What about after you fell asleep?"_ They had asked her, proposing that Nancy had crept out during the night to commit heinous murder.

Both of them were outraged, but couldn't do a damn thing to find the true culprit.

"I just know that Nancy couldn't have killed Rod, Glen." Tina insisted so fiercely, staring him down in a way so strangely confident for her.

Of course, Glen had always wanted Tina to stand up for herself a bit more, but to be so sure after all that had happened…?

"How do you know that?" Glen asked curiously, as Tina made it seem like she had proof, but he had no idea of what.

"Because I killed him." She said in that oh so soft voice of hers, before her eyes began to burn like hellfire.

Glen scrambled back from his now horrific friend, her skin frying and peeling off as she slowly crept closer to him.

"I followed him out into the woods, and broke his ankles," Tina continued, her body now lighting up into a blazing inferno as the world around her began to sizzle and break.

The walls began to twist and warp like melting clay, as the lights all around fizzled out, leaving only the walking bonfire that was Tina behind.

"Of course, he was so drunk that he barely noticed a thing. Thought he had simply tripped." She whispered out, the mere syllables uttered coming out in a fearsome snarl, some unholy beast having slipped inside the girl he had known for years.

"T-tina…" Glen stuttered in fear, backing even farther away from the horrific hellfire that now stalked closer to him, a nightmarish smirk lighting up on its face.

"Tina's not here right now, and neither is Nancy. They were both sleeping soundly as I took that little knife and carved Rod's head clean." The beast said with a dark chuckle, a flaming arm raising up as the flames began to die.

Where once had been his friend, now stood a heavily burned man, one that seemed oddly familiar.

That face though, that blotchy and ruined face just smiled on at Glen, that horrible hand coming closer to the boy's face.

A glove now rested on it, the melted flesh combined with it, forming a mortal instrument of pain and suffering, gleaming blades reaching out to rend flesh.

"Thing is, they'll never find out what I truly did to him… there's so many organs in the body that you can live without. I stripped him one by one," The monster said with a lick of his charred lips, those eyes lighting up as Glen finally backed up against the classroom wall, a gnarled bookcase to his side.

"Eventually, I got up to the eyes… and you know, your eyes are so very nice Glennie…" The man said with that horrible cackle, those blades reaching for his very eyes, the reflection horrible as Glen watched his one face advancing on those blades.

"By the way kid, you never had a chance with her." That creature said in parting with a grim look before rearing back with his arm swung out.

Then he struck forward, **and Glen's eyes fell closed.**

* * *

**(Thursday, September 17th, 1981)**

* * *

**My hand kept bleeding.**

The medic they brought in said it was unlike anything they had seen.

I agreed with them, since it actually wasn't. After being terrorized by the horrible image of Albus, and seeing my enemy in his native form, I was full of questions and not a single answer.

He obviously was some form of entity, or creature.

Judging by the way he acted, and the fact that he could only hurt me during the night, he had some attachment to dreams.

So, I was forcing myself to stay awake.

After the second night of my arrest, when I was coughing up blood after the bastard had began rearranging my innards, I was moved to Springfield's hospital, and was finally out of the cell.

Of course, this came with both benefits and consequences.

I was no longer locked in a cell, but I was locked inside a sterile room with a camera trained on me, for all the good it did.

However, I'm a Witch, so petty confines such as these aren't too effective.

As well, the hospital was perfect, since it held exactly what I needed.

Stimulants, of which I sampled many to aid me in keeping that bastard away.

If I didn't sleep, he couldn't attack me, easy enough.

With a minor Imperious, I had the nurse bringing me stimulants every two hours, rather than the IV she was meant to be bringing me.

My blood loss was worrying, but it was nothing I hadn't experienced the first time I got that damn mark on my hand. With all my nostalgia, that hadn't been a thing I missed…

Wide awake and feeling more juiced up than I had in awhile, I knew what I needed to do next, and I planned it out to the letter.

With a tiny charm used for Halloween, I brought my heartbeat to a still, causing the mother of all alarms to begin to blare.

Quickly jumping from the bed and hiding against the far wall, I waited as two orderlies unlocked and then ran into my room, their keys glimmering in the light like treasure.

Just as they got confused, since there wasn't a dead Nancy Thompson on the bed, I just smiled and waved at them like a good little girl.

**"Obliviate."**

* * *

**Tina was surprised,** Glen actually seemed worse off than she was. Whereas Glen was usually a calm and stable person, even in the worst of conditions, now the boy was pale and skittish.

He jumped at shadows and refused to be close to anyone, not even a handshake was accepted as he shivered near constantly.

Tina had been petrified after her nightmare, and she had a feeling Glen was the same, and she'd prove it.

After much running around and sneaking, she finally cornered her friend in the halls, pulling him to a corner despite his protests.

Covering his scream, she made him focus on her as she gave him some room.

"T-tina… what's going on?" He asked of her with… fear, in his eyes. Glen had never looked at her like that, and she couldn't understand it.

Until she recognized his fear, the fact he was trying not to breathe too loudly, lest he get noticed by something horrible.

Even the way he looked at her like she was a monster in flesh coverings.

"Glen… have you been having nightmares?" Tina asked him, almost begging him to answer as he managed a nod to her.

She had more than a feeling at this point, as she noticed the long cuts on his chest that his sweater failed to cover, the one leading up the base of his neck.

The slices were just as thin and pronounced as the tears in her nightgown, like fishing knives.

"The burned man, right Glen?" She asked him, almost prodding him along as she needed to know she wasn't crazy, that the monster she had seen was more than a nightmare.

Glen's eyes grew large then, as his mouth dropped open in surprise and something close to horror.

His eyes flickering back and forth, just as hers had once before, he moved closer to her as if to whisper.

**"His name is Freddy..."**

* * *

**I needed answers,** and I had a hunch.

As I had been the main suspect, I knew almost all the details of Rod's murder.

The fact he had been so drunk that he probably couldn't see, his missing organs, and finally his crushed skull as the knife I had taken from him pierced his skull.

Overall, I seemed guilty as all hell, so that's why I was hiding out in the woods.

The same woods Rod had died in, as I tracked the faint traces of blood across the dirt of the forest.

As soon as I had gotten free of the hospital, I had apparated back to Nancy's home and gotten dressed, her mother Marge having long left for the day, leaving me plenty of time to collect what I needed.

Clothes, food, a water bottle, and several bottles of stimulant and one lucky needle.

Piling them all together in my backpack, I apparated once more to the back of Tina's house, and began to follow the route that Rod had taken Monday night.

The rainfall had removed his footsteps and near erased all scent of alcohol, but I kept finding shards of glass leading through the walls.

I could only guess he had broken a beer bottle or something, since each shard stank of cheap beer, and that seemed Rod's favorite.

Putting my mind to rest, I stalked forward through the forest with light steps, leering through the growing darkness as I journeyed on.

The day had mostly ended, my escape taking most of the morning and my preparations the afternoon, so I found myself in a clearing by sunset.

I knew this was where Rod died, as blood and some grimsly remains rested by a large oak tree, but something else caught my attention rather than the spot.

A rusted metal sign resting on the ground, the wooden post long broken by age, faded letters meeting my gaze as I lifted it to the moonlight.

Having read it, I looked through the growing gloom at the building in the distance, so ominous and malicious.

"Springfield Power Plant." I read with a low chuckle, feeling confident I was exactly where I needed to be, this burnt out husk of a place was my new destination.

I didn't know what I was looking for, but Rod dying to that burning bastard, so very close to this abandoned power plant? There had to be some connection between this charred trash heap and the melted man in my dreams.

Letting the sign drop, I began to step forward through the trees, my eyes locked on the power plant, but I felt a shiver run through my spine.

That same damn chill that I had felt every day so far, that feeling of dread in my soul that I couldn't shake no matter what I did.

I might have been going crazy, but I swear I heard a whisper then, that same bastard screwing with us all. He wouldn't let me go that easily, because he kept coming back, even in my mind.

**"Make yourself at home…"**

* * *

**They were determined to find the truth,** and their search had shown it.

They knew that Freddy had to be real, with no other reasoning behind their shared nightmares, they came to the conclusion that he had to have killed Rod and framed Nancy.

Confidence and anger in their minds, they had set out on their hunt for answers.

Glen and her had scoured the local library for anything related to fires, men named Freddy or even Fred, and didn't find anything at all.

How was it that all through Springfield's history, that not a single fire was recorded in the archives? Not a single man named Fred was documented?

It was insane, that there was what appeared to be a missing page in the town's history, and that page had Freddy written all over it.

Book after book, newspaper after newspaper, they had searched for some scrap of information that could tell them what Freddy wanted from them, only to find something tucked far away in a school yearbook.

A wrinkled little scrap of newspaper, of a filthy-looking man with a long nose in handcuffs, a hint of a dark smile on the man's face as he looked straight at the camera with what could only be seen as smugness.

"Child Killer Set Free. Fred Krueger walks"

A fire lit in their minds, the two teens had searched for Fred Krueger then, any kind of Krueger, and had even less luck than before, but they had his name.

With no other answers to be found, and silence from the librarians, they had went to the only adults that wouldn't lie to Tina.

Her own parents, who had greeted the two of them warmly until they all had sat together in their lounge.

"I just can't believe all that's happened with Nancy, have you heard anything Tina?" Marion Gray, her often busy mother asked of her, her heart going out to her daughter, for she had lived her own share of hardship growing up.

Tina thought about carrying on with the conversation, saying once again that she hadn't heard anything from Nancy, but Glen's eyes gave her the courage she needed.

"Mom… Dad… Who was Freddy Krueger?"

Her dad reacted first, rage filling his eyes as he jumped to his feet, and began to pace to himself in frustration.

"Christina… where did you hear that name?" Her father asked her so calmly and coldly that she knew there was a history there, this child killer, Fred Krueger, knew her parents.

Her mother looked just as interested to know.

Looking to Glen, he coughed to get their attention, and bravely began despite his nerves.

"We… we know he died, but we don't think he's really dead." Glen said carefully, carrying on even after Tina's father threw his hands up in anger. "We think he killed Rod Lane."

At that, they turned once again on the two teens, both of them with stone gazes, but Marion relented hers as she looked to the floor.

"Fred Krueger… was the janitor at the Power plant in Old Springfield." Marion began to speak, only to be cut off mid sentence by her husband.

"Fred was a demented piece of shit that killed kids." He growled out, almost as if the killer was here himself, his eyes were alight with rage.

His wife looked at him in frustration then, before turning back to the teens and sighing aloud.

"Krueger eventually got arrested, but he got off because of a technicality, an officer didn't sign on the dotted line, and Krueger went free." Marion said as a whisper as her mind obviously turned to someplace else, as they could almost see the blur that came over her eyes.

Tina had a feeling where this was going, since her father began to smile, a grin way too savage and bloody to be on her gentle father's face.

"You killed him… didn't you Daddy?" She asked of the man as he finally seemed to notice them, but that smile fell when he saw Glen was still there.

Both parents looked to each other then, before making a decision of sorts.

"When Kruger got set free… a lot of parents were outraged that the Police could let such a monster walk free, so we went after him." He said with a wistful tone, looking off into the distance as some other emotion overcame the man.

Disappointment, probably that he hadn't done more.

"We ran him into the Power Plant, and he ran down to that disgusting boiler room to hide from us… We lit the place on fire." He said in a whisper, almost as if sad, but they knew he wasn't.

"A monster like that, and we just left him there… We watched him burn, but we never made sure." Marion said in the same tone, before suddenly bolting to her feet in shock, her eyes horrified as her mind raced through her memories.

**"We never made sure…"**

* * *

**It felt like I was walking through a dead body.**

The walls were rusted and twisted, jagged beams sticking out like bloody ribs as I walked through the darkness within.

The floors burnt and cracked beneath my feet as I stepped forward through the power plant, smelling what seemed to be smoke as my eyes grew weary.

I heard singing then, and felt heat swarm through my body, sweat dripping from me in waves.

My hands shaking, I pulled my backpack free, struggling to pull free the syringe from within it, determined to stay awake no matter the cost.

Only to have the syringe batted out of my hands, the needle shattering before my eyes as the stimulant within flowed free and drifted in the air like fog.

Taking a deep breath and realizing what was going on, I turned my gaze and saw him there.

The burned and twisted skin, that filthy and yellowed grin, the fleshy red and green sweater that smelled of blood and rot.

He stood there, this nightmare made flesh, staring right at me in hunger and something I would dare to call happiness.

"Didn't someone tell you Harrikins… Winners don't take drugs." He snarled out a laugh at me, coming closer, but I wasn't frozen any longer.

Stepping back from him, I focused and decided to break a promise I had made lives before.

I had made the promise after entirely too much loss and carnage, to never cast the spell again, to never let back in the savagery that I had once waded through.

To choose a brighter and better solution, but this monster was dragging up bad memories, and I would destroy him for that.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" I nearly screamed as I let free that ice cold spell from my hands, the blinding emerald light blasting the bastard back and dropping him on the spot.

Seeing him done and dead, I took a breath and couldn't believe it was over, that I had finished off this demon so quickly.

I couldn't believe it, and my freaking nerves were proven right when I heard that gruff chuckle in the silent room, a sickly cough following it close by.

I just sighed and looked to see the bastard standing straight up, looking none the worse for wear, aside from being a horrific nightmare of course.

He just smiled at me, his claw-like fingers drifting closer to me as he began to laugh in my face, blood and spit flying at me as he stared at me with those mad eyes.

**"That tickled!"**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note  
I enjoy writing this story way too much.  
How's three story arcs sound?


	4. Sandman

> **Life 33: Sweet Dreams**
> 
> * * *

**"What even are you…?” **I said with no small amount of amazement and horror, finding myself looking closer at the burned monster before me.

I mean, I had literally hit him with a spell that does nothing but kill, and it did nothing.

Course, this wasn’t the first time the spell had failed, I was the exception once, but it was the first time I had no idea what went wrong.

The man simply kept up that annoying laugh, and gave me a blood soaked grin as we both just stared each other down, silence dragging on.

He was playing with me, it was obvious, but since I had nothing that’d probably do more than annoy him, I let it.

However, after the heat became unbearable, the man laughed at me, those claws coming too close to my face in the process. 

“Oh, how rude of me not to introduce myself, what with me knowing literally everything in that noggin of yours. ” He mocked with a gruff chuckle, his smile growing ever wider as he did a fanciful bow in the process. 

**“Freddy Krueger, Dream Demon.”**

* * *

**** **(Friday, September 18th, 1981)**

* * *

**** **“Hello Donald.” **Mathew Gray said a near whisper as he stepped into the man’s apocalyptic looking office. Mathew had been shocked when Tina and her friend had come along, dragging up the past and the Slasher.

He didn’t believe it honestly, but now thinking about it… his dreams had been getting worse, and Marion had said the same. He had reached out to some of the Springfield Parents, as they had become known, and many reported bad dreams as well, half of them even featuring Krueger.

Mathew had been one of the first to damn Krueger, to step forward and offer to hunt him down, and now to hear that Krueger might not even be dead…?

It was impossible to ignore, no matter how small a chance that if Krueger had lived, everyone was in danger. He had killed children before, but when their parents tried to kill him?

He’d kill anyone and everyone, which brought him to Donald Thompson, his former friend and the one man he could trust to help him. 

Said man just looked at him in confusion and exhaustion, the sheer mess surrounding the man taking hold of him.

Don’s daughter arrested for murder, then escaped from the hospital and is nowhere to be found?

Mathew wouldn’t be in the best shape either, he wouldn’t argue that, but Donald was the only one he could trust.

“Matt… it’s been a while.” The older man said softly, at a lack of words really. They hadn’t spoken in years, not since their daughters first met, and suddenly in the middle of this mess they were reunited. 

“I’m afraid it’s not a social call Don.” Mathew said with a grimace as he took a seat beside his old friend, the other man seeming to catch on to the vibe, his headache growing worse than before.

Donald didn’t have much good happening for him right now, and this was going to be even worse.

“What is this about Matt…?” Donald asked with a pained glance, almost guessing it. Ever since Rod Lane had died, he had been having nightmare after nightmare, all to do with the same memory… 

**“I don’t think Fred Krueger’s dead.”**

* * *

**** **Her father departed, **Tina could only stew beside Glen as the two sat with her mother, thinking over the obvious subject.

She also was getting really sick of the way her mother kept acting like they had failed her and everyone by not killing Krueger for good.

However, Glen and her hadn’t really mentioned the nightmare thing of it all, since they were sure it sounded insane.

Her father had run to the Police before they could stop him, saying something about finishing what they had started, but Tina knew it was in vain.

Fred Krueger, whatever had happened to him, wasn’t a man anymore.

He was more than that, and only Glen seemed to believe her, but her mother just might.

“Mom… I don’t think the Police are going to be able to help.” Tina tried to tell her mother, in her heart knowing that there was more to the killer. His… powers, whatever they were, were too strong to be stopped by a bullet.

As well, they weren’t even sure you could shoot him, they hadn’t seen him at all in the waking world, no matter how much the two seemed to blur together during the nightmares.

“They caught him once Tina, they can do it again.” Her mother tried to argue, with the unspoken message that they could just kill him again if need be, but Tina knew that wasn’t it.

“There’s something about him though… it’s like, he’s only in our nightmares, but he’s…” Tina tried to began explaining, only for her eyes to flicker to the jagged tear line like marks on Glen’s face, a reminder of Krueger himself.

He wasn’t really here, but he could hurt and kill just as easily as he ever had, and twice as more effectively.

“We think… we think he’s like a ghost, but a bit more.” Glen explained to her, speaking after the sudden silence, his face twitching as he felt what felt like fire streak up those slender marks. 

“He’s not human Mom.” Tina exclaimed, trying her hardest to get at least one of her parents to realize the danger Krueger possessed.

He wasn’t a janitor with a clawed glove, he was a creature of the beyond now, beyond death itself.

**“He never was sweetie.”**

* * *

**** **It was odd.**

Of course, I have no idea what a dream demon is, but now that Freddy and I stood face to face, his aura was horrifying. 

As an Avatar of Death, I had been made aware of the passing of mortality around me. It was a curse to begin with, still is most lives, for I see more than I would ever want to.

I know when someone dies, when they’re going to die, and I can sometimes get visions of how. All horrible perks of the job, having to find out that your wife would die in a month… 

My Death Sense wasn’t a welcome addition to my abilities, but it did have its pros. 

I could see spirits in any form, feel their presence and their auras… but Freddy… 

I felt hundreds of spirits all screaming and rampaging around inside Freddy’s burnt excuse for a body. He held souls within him, trapped hostage within his very form.

It was… horrible, so much so that I had never felt Death’s presence so heavily in years.

If I didn’t know any better, Death was telling me to send Freddy his way.

I would if I knew how the hell to do that.

“I won’t pretend to know what a dream demon is, but that’s a nice soul sweater you're wearing there Fred.” I said about as casually as I could, trying to dig for literally anything that could kill this guy.

Bad Guys always loved to talk too much. 

“No more small talk!” Freddy yelled with rage filled excitement, one I hadn’t seen before in even drug addicts, those claws soaring straight for my face.

However, I still had another card to play, but I wasn’t too sure if it’d work while asleep.

Fuck the chance of splinching, I apparated.

Lupin had thought the Patronus was skillful, trying to apparate while asleep? 

Just before I did though, I flipped Freddy a finger of my own, listening to him scream after me.

Oddly though, I felt almost a tugging sensation on my Magic after I did, and remembered a similar feeling when I’ve been tracked before, meaning I needed to do some more jumps.

More than that, I needed to get the burned bastard off my tail and regroup, and find a way to kill him. 

**“How do you feel about Norway Freddy?”**

* * *

**** **Worries were building, **as Tina and her mother had yet to hear back her father, and the three began thinking over what had happened to Krueger, and how they could stop him.

However, just as Tina was worrying about her, Nancy just strolled inside the house like it was just another afternoon coming back from school.

“He’s a dream demon.” Nancy said simply and straight to the point, addressing the two of them with only a courtesy glance at Marion.

“What’s a dream demon?” Tina asked her in a rush, more than glad to see her friend more or less fine, but the point raised was news. 

“Not an idea, but I know who does.” Nancy said with a well worn smirk, stepping closer to them then, her eyes falling on Marion.

“Mrs. Gray, do you mind helping me with a little something?” She asked with urgency in her tone, her earlier mood a cover, because for all they knew they were in trouble at this very moment.

Marion nodded then, but Nancy just took a look at the three of them equally. Marion was curious but happy to help, while Tina was just glad she was there after almost a week of absence. 

“I want to preface what I’m about to do, by saying I’ll explain it all to you later. Just don’t freak out, please.” Nancy asked of them seriously, making Tina and Glen nod almost immediately, Marion moments later.

With their permission, Nancy’s eyes began to glow an emerald green, her right hand outstretched to Marion with focus and a low whisper that floated all around them. 

To their surprise though, Nancy began to speak… Egyptian, the light bulbs shattering one by one as Tina and Glen stared around them in shock and awe, the house began to shake with the force of some unforeseen being. 

However, what really stole their attention was when Marion screamed out into the night, and her eyes began to glow a shining gold.

In seconds, the lights all cut out and the pressure around them became stifling as Marion began to float, an odd look in her eyes as the air around them began to chill and freeze over.

However, Nancy merely smiled at her like they were old friends.

“Wives wisdom is your vice, I name thee Thoth.” She said in a way that she seemed much too familiar with, but that same smile remained.

Tina was just freaking out because of the fact that her mother was floating in the air and glowing, which she couldn’t be blamed for. Her mother didn’t have a habit of being possessed. 

Marion, or whoever rested within her now, just tilted their head in confusion then before seeing what it was seeking in Nancy’s gaze.

“Osirison, we meet again.” Marion’s body said, only for the voice that came out to be that of a powerful and fierce sounding man, amusement in its voice as it stared at the girl. 

“I told you to stop calling me that.” Nancy said with a groan, rolling her eyes as Tina and Glen could only watch the bizarre meeting of minds going on in her kitchen. 

The entity, Thoth, just chuckled before freezing in place. 

“Enough chatter, you summon me for knowledge. What is your question?” The being asked of Nancy, who just stared right back at it in turn, no doubt in mind of the question. 

“How do I kill a dream demon?” She asked of the entity, who merely blinked in response. Nancy just stared back at it without pause, until Thoth’s lights gave a flicker.

“Simply turn them mortal, Osiris will do the rest I’m sure.” Thoth said with a nod, before suddenly the otherworldly lights were gone, Thoth was gone.

The light bulbs were repaired as well, and the four of them sat around the dining table with tea in hands. 

Marion was not possessed by some sort of entity, merely looking slightly sick to her stomach, which she was.

Everything that had gone wrong was gone, as if it had never happened in the first place. Glen wondered for a second if it actually had. 

Tina just turned to Nancy, who sat so calmly there beside, a cup in hand so casually. 

Nancy, the girl she had known for most her life, who she thought she knew better than anyone, and now was proven so very wrong. 

“Nancy… what did you do?” Tina asked of her in slight fear of whatever cosmic force had possessed her mother, all the while remembering that Freddy was still out there waiting for them.

“Oh nothing much, just summoned the God of Knowledge to find out how to kill Krueger.” Nancy said with a grin that she wanted to beat off of her, before setting her cup down. “Of course, old Thoth doesn’t give too reliable of answers, but it's not like I can just randomly find how to kill Freddy around this town.” 

Tina and Glen just stared at her, their very fabric of reality threatened as they processed what she had said, while Marion realized that she had housed a god and almost thrown up from the experience. 

“Nancy… how can you summon gods?” Glen asked here, more curious and afraid to know than anything else. If it wasn’t bad enough that a dream demon was hunting them down, their friend was summoning gods before lunch.

Lovely, but Nancy just shrugged and leaned back in her seat, her eyes going relaxed as she picked at her nails.  
“I may or may not be Death’s avatar to walk the mortal plane, so I called in a favor.” She said with as much weight as discussing the weather, not that she admitted to just being a literal pillar of reality and being owed the favor of a literal god.

“Y-you’re Death?” Tina asked of shock and fear, regretting some of the thoughts she’d had before now. However, she wouldn’t have expected any of this from Nancy Thompson.

“More like I work for him, without pay or a choice, or really any benefits except being able to see dead people and talk to them.” Nancy said with a grimace then, before taking a breath and looking at them with a new look of determination.

“Regardless, we’re in prep time everyone,” She said in a stern way as she waved her hand, and instantly coffee flowed from the pot into their cups in a single arc.

**“Oh yeah, Magic’s real too.”**

* * *

**** **I’ve broken cover before.**

I didn’t always stay within my name or purpose, sometimes even exposing the true layer of reality to people, but few ever believed me. 

I mean, when you get a warning letter from God himself, your life begins to become more myth than reality doesn’t it?

Regardless, I figured there wasn’t too much at risk of letting Tina and Glen in my secret, especially since I don’t really have the time to be sneaking around them and acting defenseless. I need to protect them, and myself, and we hold a numbers advantage over Freddy.

Of course, Thoth was a call I hadn’t wanted to make really, but I hadn’t found any lore on dream demons. So, I used up the one favor Thoth owed me and he cheaped out on me, but hey, I would take what I could get in regards to Krueger. 

However useless it all was, I did know that we had to take the immortal Dream Demon that was after us, and make him into a mortal man once more.

I have no idea how to do that, but I do have a theory, however I would need to set up some precautions first.

With Tina and the others seated, I began weaving together wards only I could see around the house, and a few around themselves, all shivering an invisible jade energy. 

I was never good at wards, but these weren’t for defense, more of a different purpose. Honestly, it was just something ridiculous that I had never tried before by hoped would help.

I basically turned the house into an alarm clock, and set trip wires on each of us, even myself.

Freddy proved that I wasn’t infallible either, pulling me to sleep when I was even ready for him too.

However, I had to be prepared for anything. 

The house rigged up, and my living triggers all settled, I stepped back to Tina and Glen and looked them over.

They’re just kids, innocent and kinda cringy, but innocents nonetheless.

Innocents that were in the way between me and the burned bastard, but I wasn’t risking them like this.

Giving a smile to them both, I just pulled a strange smelling cloth from my pockets. 

They eyed it oddly, but I just smiled at them as I raised it to my face, my eyes flickering like window blinds.

Glen seemed to catch on, but Tina just caught me as I fell forward, my world going dark as I slipped back into the other realm. 

With a wink at Tina, and a caution, I fell under.

**“Wake me up before I die.” **

* * *

**** **(1968)**

* * *

**** **“Burn him!” **The crowd of men and women chanted and screamed as they tossed bottle after bottle of flames into the power plant, the doors having been sealed already.

Fred Krueger had considered this place his sanctuary, and now they would use it to burn him to death, a trap he had put together for himself.

The fires rose even higher inside the plant as Fred tried to avoid the flames, to beat out the sparks that set his sweater ablaze, to ignore the pulsing pain he felt as his leg had been splintered. 

They had chased him from town, from the courthouse, all the way to here, his shadowy abode.

Now burning alive with their hatred and lust for revenge, Fred trapped within it all, the fires drawing close.

However, he didn’t regret a single drop of blood he’d shed, nor a single scratch he had sliced deep. 

They had asked for it, they all had.

They’d try to burn him, kill him, destroy him… But he had this odd feeling in his chest.

Just as the flames licked over his flesh, his skin beginning to burn and sizzle, he felt it.

A purpose.

A drive.

The nightmare wouldn’t end, for any of them. He would track down each of them and gut them one by one, their children too. All of their bodies would rest in the boiler room, where he had spent so long slicing and skinning that the place boiled not with steam, but souls themselves.

These people, they may be many, but he wasn’t a man any longer. He wasn’t like them, never was to begin with.

Now he was something else, something better than them.

**Freddy felt alive. **


End file.
